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Mobile ad fraud problem shows little sign of slowing down - report

Mobile ad fraud has continued to be an industry problem with bad actors becoming more sophisticated and making it even more difficult for mobile advertisers to fight back. At the same time, according to a report, the issue continues to be more prominent on Android than on iOS.

Interceptd, a mobile ad fraud prevention tool, analysed more than 11,000 apps and over 35m installs to assess the state of mobile ad fraud. It found that 26.9 per cent of app installs are fraudulent on Google Play versus 21.3 per cent in the App Store.

Finance was found to the be the most vulnerable category on Android, suffering a 35.2 per cent fraudulent traffic rate ahead of shopping (32.8 per cent), gaming (32.4 per cent), and social (31.5 per cent).

Meanwhile, shopping is hit hardest on iOS with a rate of 32.9 per cent, followed by gaming (30.3 per cent), finance (28.8 per cent), and travel (21.1 per cent). Here, 37.1 per cent of fraudulent traffic was found to come from device farms and 23.7 per cent from bots.